Macaron & Cupcake Bouquet to say...

...Sorry, this isn't a recipe post. Things are completely insane at the moment, and the only thing I had time to bake on the weekend was this little edible bouquet which I made as a thank you present for my wonderful wedding dress designer, Rhonda Hemmingway. People won't see the dress until this weekend but Rhonda and her team have been so incredibly lovely and made the entire wedding dress process completely stress-free that I wanted to make sure I did something special for her. I made the same blueberry cupakes as these ones but added lemon juice instead of vanilla bean to the icing, and used this strawberry jam buttercream to fill the macarons.

Unfortunately with my parents in town and all the wedding and work stuff I was doing at the same time I barely managed to find the time to do it, so it was a total rush job and not my best effort ever. I managed to waste an entire batch of cupcakes because I used plain flour instead of self-raising flour by accident (yes, I would be THAT person if I was a contestant on Masterchef). And the macarons were a little overcooked but hopefully they still tasted great after a day or so of maturing in the fridge.

The tulle netting and pinks is all a little too girly for me, but it seemed appropriate considering the circumstances. I used a cute little bucket that I got from Victoria's Basement, placed a styrofoam craft ball inside and used some wooden skewers to secure the cupcakes and macarons in place. Originally I wanted to make a batch of my salted chocolate chip cookies for the bouquet as well just to make it a little more fun, but after wasting all the time and ingredients on the first batch of fail cupcakes I decided to settle for just the macs and cupcakes. Anyway, I figured I might as well share it with you, since it was pretty easy to put together and a great little present you could give to anyone. I wrapped up the whole thing in clear cellophane with ribbon to protect it and hold it together while I was transporting it. She absolutely loved it!

In other news, I thought I might share some of the lovely little mentions and features that I've had in a few magazines and newspapers around the place. It's always exciting and humbling to get a nice blurb printed up! The first was Woman's World in the US who featured my Fruit Tingles Cake (although they incorrectly suggested using popping candy instead of all the other fizzy sherbet lollies I mentioned were available in the US, and I eye-twitched a little at the photo of the box of instant cake mix which they included but no biggie), Girlfriend Magazine included my Earl Grey & Poppy Seed Muffin recipe in this month's issue (June 2012) right next to Lisa, yay! Also there was a really lovely description in last month's issue of Jamie Magazine (Issue 27), and a teeny tiny mention (more of a mention-let) in the UK Times newspaper last month with a photo of my cheesecake-filled chocolate easter eggs. Big thanks to Kate from the little loaf who let me know about it and got her Dad to scan it for me, so sweet!

Woman's World (thanks to Laura Knipping for the copy!)

Girlfriend Magazine

Jamie Magazine

The Times (thanks to Kate for the scan!)

Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam

That title is a bit of a mouthful, I know. But I needed you to know that this is a delicious brown butter cake. Filled with strawberry jam. And it's covered in cream cheese icing piped to look like white daisies. And it's pink on the outside. And ombré! I guess I couldn't help packing lots of my favourite things into one cake. The wordy post title was unavoidable. This cake needed to happen as soon as I thought of it. Dreamt of it actually. I woke up at 4 in the morning with the image of this cake in my mind. I had to make it!

I was in no small way inspired by the mind-blowingly stunning flower cakes that I saw on i am baker (see her hydrangea cake, rose cake, and daffodil cake). I am the first to admit that I completely suck at piping. My attempt at white daisies is not even in the same league. But it will have to do. This weekend was A's sister's birthday and it was the perfect excuse to attempt this cake. She loves cheesecakes so I thought a cream cheese icing would be perfect for this cake. I've been dying to do an ombré icing on the outside of a cake ever since seeing this cake from Apt. 2B Baking Co., followed by Lisa's awesome purple & chocolate version. Originally I was going to use strawberry jam to tint the icing pink, but it made the icing really runny with hardly any colour or added flavour so I gave up and used natural food colouring instead. For the record, I think it's 100 times easier doing ombré icing on a cake than it is to do ombré cake layers and I will definitely be doing it again.

I tried to keep the icing layer really thin so it wasn't too rich or sweet. I really didn't want the icing to overwhelm the flavour of the three layers of beautiful brown butter cake. The smell of brown butter being whipped up with sugar and vanilla bean is unbelievably mouth-watering. The cake batter tasted so divine that I knew this cake would be a winner before I even baked it. The combination of the nutty-flavoured brown butter with the strawberry jam and creamy icing is out of this world.

I know the daisies don't look exactly right, but they're close enough for me. I know you could easily shape flowers using gum paste but I liked the challenge of attempting it with icing. I was just happy to get something that even remotely resembled flowers. I was praying not to end up with a cake that looked like the icing had been flung on to the top of it by a crazed monkey. So...I think, mission accomplished? The easiest way for me to make a petal shape was to piped a blob of icing and then smear the middle of it in a line using a small spatula. I definitely made my petals a bit too indented for daisy petals, but I've never been very coordinated so I didn't have much control over that. And I cheated and used yellow skittles for the centres of the daisies. I really love white daisies, I may have mentioned that before. So I hope you can understand why I didn't have the heart to cut into the top of the cake to give you an innards shot. I just couldn't bring myself to mess up the top of the cake before I got to present it to the birthday girl. Hopefully it will be okay!

Edit: If you realllllyyy want to see the inside you can check out the dodgy Instagram shot I got of the cake while we were demolishing it. It disappeared fast!

Brown Butter Layer Cake with Strawberry Jam & Pink Ombré Daisy Cream Cheese Icing

(makes a three-layer 17cm cake, brown butter cake recipe from Food & Wine)

For the cake:

340g (12oz/3 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pans

285g (2 1/4 cups) plain/all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

370g (1 2/3 cups) sugar

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped, or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract

3 large egg yolks

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups milk, at room temperature

About 1/2 cup strawberry jam for spreading

For the cream cheese icing:

500g (about 17.6 oz) cream cheese, chopped

250g (about 8.8 oz) unsalted butter, chopped

3 cups icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Optional: natural pink food colour

Yellow skittles, to decorate

In a medium saucepan, melt butter for cake. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until foamy, about 5 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the milk solids turn brown and the butter smells nutty, about 4 minutes longer. Scrape the melted butter and browned bits into a large heatproof bowl. Set the bowl in an ice water bath until the butter hardens. Alternatively do what I did and prep the butter ahead of time and chill in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 165°C (325°F). Butter two or three 17cm cake pans and line the bottoms of the pans with baking paper. (I only had one so I had to bake each cake separately, which did cause the later cakes to be less high but it still turned out okay) Butter the paper and dust the pans with flour, tapping out the excess. Whisk the 2  1/4 cups of all-purpose flour with the baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Scrape set brown butter in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until creamy. Add the sugar and vanilla seeds and beat at medium-high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the egg yolks followed by the whole eggs. Beat in the dry ingredients and milk in 3 alternating additions, scraping down the side and bottom of the bowl as necessary. Pour the cake batter into the prepared pans and bake in the center of the oven for about 30mins if doing three layers, closer to 40 minutes if only making two, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until the cakes are golden and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert them onto a rack to let them cool completely. Peel off the parchment paper.

Remove butter and cream cheese from the fridge 30 mins before starting icing. Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat butter with an electric mixer on high until smooth and fluffy. Add cream cheese and beat until combined and smooth. With the mixer on low, gradually add icing sugar, add vanilla and increase to high. Beat until light and fluffy. If doing ombré icing, take about 1/3 of the icing, split that icing into two separate bowls and tint one bowl light pink and one bowl a darker pink. Trim any uneven tops off the cake layers. If filling cake with strawberry jam, whisk jam to remove lumps and sandwich between cake layers. Using the white cream cheese icing, crumb coat outside of cake. Chill in fridge for at least 15 mins.

Starting at the bottom, spread the dark pink icing over the bottom third of the cake using an offset spatula. Do the same for the middle third of the cake using the lighter pink icing, blending the two colours where they meet. Spread white icing over the top third of the cake and smooth with spatula. If piping daisies, place leftover white icing in a piping bag with a 0.5cm round tip. Pipe 5cm rings of 1cm dots of icing and then use the tip of a mini spatula or a chopstick to smear each dot of icing to make the petals. Place a yellow skittle in the centre of each piped flower. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Remove from the fridge 30 mins before serving. Can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days.

Mandarin & Jasmine Tea Cup Jellies with Raspberries

After the Trifle Disaster of 2012, I hope you can understand that I needed a little break from baking. I'm loving jelly recipes at the moment, and I wanted to come up with something easy, fruity and fresh. And since it was Mother's Day this weekend, I thought it would be cute idea to serve them in some adorable, girly tea cups as well. Teacup jellies!

Aaaand since the jellies were going to be in tea cups I figured, why not make a tea flavoured jelly? I love using tea in desserts, especially earl grey and green tea. This time I happened to have a tin of jasmine tea that I wanted to use. I drink my fair share of jasmine tea when I eat out at restaurants since it's usually the default tea served, but to be honest I don't love it. I find jasmine can be a tad too floral for my tastes while eating savoury food, I usually prefer tik koon yam (spelling?) tea at home and with yum cha. Mmm yum cha...

What was I talking about? Oh. So it turns out the floral notes in the jasmine tea make it perfect for using in a dessert. It's a very, very light floral scent so you don't have to worry about it tasting like a bar of soap the way that some lavender desserts can taste, for example. The floral and bitter flavour of the tea is a great match for the sweet mandarin juice and tart, fresh raspberries. I was honestly surprised by how interestingly and pleasantly the flavours worked together.

Of course there's no reason why you have to restrict yourself to jasmine tea for this recipe. I can imagine earl grey or green tea working just as well, or any other sweet black tea. And of course you could play around with the combination of fruit flavours as well, I bet a sweet green tea jelly with blackberries would be great. You could even use sparkling wine or add a bit of liqueur or spirits to make boozy tea cup jellies. Gin in a tea cup jelly! The jellies were a little cloudier than I had hoped for, but you can still see the raspberries in the cups and I think the effect is quite pretty.

I know there's nothing super exciting or challenging about jelly, but I love to have a really easy recipe to do every now and then, especially when I'm crazy busy. Also, pretty much everything looks great when it's served in a tea cup with gorgeous little spoons. I think my love of jelly comes from all the giant ones my Mum used to make for parties (gotta love the retroness of it!), and the little agar jellies she always makes for dessert with tinned fruit salad and a hint of rose syrup in pretty moulds. I guess that's why it felt so appropriate making these for Mother's Day. I miss her lots but I get to see her in a week, yay!

Mandarin & Jasmine Tea Cup Jellies with Raspberries

(makes approximately 4 tea cup jellies)

Juice of 2-3 fresh mandarins (about 1/3 cup) plus extra mandarin to decorate (can be replaced with fresh orange juice)

1 tbsp powdered gelatine (can be replaced with agar)

1 tbsp sugar

400ml (approx 1 & 2/3 cups) boiling water

1 tsp jasmine tea leaves (can be replaced with other tea - e.g. green tea or earl grey)

1 punnet fresh raspberries (can be replaced with other berries)

Place boiling water and tea leaves in a bowl and leave to steep until it is strong enough to your liking, at least 10 mins. In a small saucepan, stir together gelatine, sugar and mandarin juice and leave for 1 minute while gelatine softens. Place over medium heat and stir until gelatine is completely dissolved, about 6-8 minutes.

Strain tea to remove leaves and stir in gelatine mixture. (Feel free to adjust the balance of flavours to taste at this point) Pour mixture into tea cup, add a few rasberries to each tea cup. Chill in the refrigerator until set, at least  2 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, remove from the fridge and top with extra mandarin slices and raspberries. Can be stored in the fridge for a couple days.

Passionfruit & Lemon Trifle with Macarons

Today is Asian Gaga's birthday (I think she has outgrown the nickname I gave her for this blog a while ago but it's too confusing to come up with a new one). As my bestest friend in the whole wide world, I like to bake her something extra special for her birthday each year. Last year it was the Mint Slice Cake. The year before was a Lady Gaga Cake. And before that was the Lemon Meringue Cheesecake. This year she requested something with passionfruit and lemon in it. I decided I wanted to make her a birthday trifle. I love trifles. I may have gotten slightly carried away. I drew a diagram and everything.

Behold, my Seven Layer Passionfruit and Lemon Trifle. It includes (starting from the bottom); a Passion Pop mousse, lemon cake, lemon and passionfruit curd, passiona (passionfruit soda) jelly, chocolate and passionfruit macarons, whipped cream with fresh passionfruit and mini meringues on top. The inspiration for this epic trifle came from several different places. But before I tell you about it, I need to tell you about what happened while I was making this trifle. The event that will forever be known to me as The Trifle Disaster of 2012.

I started this trifle two days in advance because I knew that all the different elements would need time to be prepped and chilled. Day one went smoothly, I made the passion pop mousse, the cake, curd, jelly and macarons. The next morning I worked at a leisurely pace to make the meringues and cream and it was going very smoothly. I was pleased. I had been taking a shot of each layer as I added it for the animated GIF further down in this post. All the components were done and I just had to take a shot of it before adding the last meringue layer. I turned my back for a second to find my camera and turned back just in time to watch the trifle slide off the spot where I had placed it and completely upend itself on my carpet. SPLAT. Completely destroyed. I screamed. A horror movie kind of scream, followed by a full-blown hysterical meltdown. A day and a half of work down the drain and I had to either give up or START ALL OVER AGAIN. Ugly crying ensued.

Yep. This kind of shit happens to me all the time. Because I'm unco and careless and messy. Like the time I dropped my camera into the middle of some freshly baked cupcakes. This time some kind of insane determination took over, and I refused to be defeated by my clumsiness. I scooped the mess off the carpet, threw it in the bin and started over (after A talked me down from my hysteria and bought me a whole bunch of new passionfruits). I made an absolute mess of my kitchen but by the end of the second day I had nearly recovered. It wasn't quite as neat and perfect as the first time around, but it was good enough. By the next morning I had a fully assembled trifle. Sighs of relief were abundant.

Most of the inspiration for this dessert came from a great passionfruit dessert I had at Hemingway's Manly which used Passion Pop, the iconic Aussie chick drink. I thought it was a great way to add a hint of nostalgia for our teenage years. It was not surprising that I got my ID checked when I went to buy a bottle of the passionfruit flavoured sparkling wine, they must have thought I was 16 or something. But it was worth it, the passion pop mousse is a delight to eat. It might be my favourite layer of this entire trifle. The pretty cubes of passionfruit soda flavoured jelly and crunchy mini meringues on top were inspired by some fabulous desserts that I tried at Quay recently. I decided on a whim to add the layer of macarons, remembering how pretty they looked in a Donna Hay trifle recipe from a while back. I made a chocolate passionfruit ganache for the macarons, which is one of my favourite macaron flavours. The moisture from the other layers does make the macarons turn soggy pretty quickly, so the last three layers are best left to be assembled right before serving. So, this weekend I made TWO trifles. I am insane but it was worth it because it's for my bestie and she deserves it, she is amazing. If you are as insane as me, I have included the recipe below. I advise you not to dump the entire contents on the floor right after you finish making it. I think I lost several years off my life this weekend. P.S. See if you can spot where disaster struck and I had to start over in the gif below. It's not the best gif ever, I was shooting handheld and had no idea if I was taking it from the same angle each time. Plus it's shot with two different trifles :P

Passionfruit & Lemon Trifle with Macarons

(I used a 15-19cm wide x 15cm tall trifle bowl)

Layer 1: Passion Pop Mousse

I made a half batch of Sprinkle Bakes Champagne Mousse, replacing the champagne with Passion Pop. If passion pop is unavailable you can replace it with sparkling mixed with passionfruit pulp to taste. Pour mousse mixture directly into the bottom of the trifle bowl and refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours.

Layer 2: Lemon Cake

Prepare the lemon cake from this recipe, using a 17cm round cake tin instead of a rectangular tin. You may need to add 5 minutes to the baking time. Trim the edges of the cake if needed so that it will fit tightly over the top of the mousse layer.

Layer 3: Lemon & Passionfruit Curd

3 passionfruit

Juice and grated zest of 1/2 a lemon (about 2 tbsp juice)

2 eggs + 1 egg yolk

100g (bit less than 1/2 cup) sugar

70g (5 tbsp) butter, softened

Place all ingredients except the butter in a saucepan and place on low heat. Stir continously (and I mean it, stop watching it and it will turn to scrambled eggs within seconds), until it's thick and coats the back of a wooden spoon, about 5-8 minutes.  Remove from the heat, strain to remove passionfruit seeds (if you prefer) and whisk in butter until smooth. Pour into a bowl and cover surface with clingfilm. Keep chilled in the fridge until ready to spread over top of cake layer.

Layer 4: Passiona Jelly

2 tbsp powdered gelatine

200ml (about 3/4 cup) + 600ml Passiona (about 2 1/2 cups) (or any passionfruit flavoured soda, I used Kirk's pasito)

Place 200ml passiona and powdered gelatine in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the gelatine is well dissolved. Pour gelatine mixture plus 600ml passiona into a cake tin or rectangular tray to set (I used a 24x32cm tray so that the jelly set 1cm thick). Chill in fridge until set, then cut using a long sharp knife into 1cm cubes. Keep chilled in the fridge until ready to sprinkle over curd layer.

Layer 5: Passionfruit Chocolate Macarons

I used my plain macaron shell recipe, using yellow gel colouring to tint the shells and only piping regular 4cm rounds. For the ganache, I placed 150g chopped dark chocolate and pulp and seeds from 1 passionfruit in a bowl and then heated 100ml heavy cream in a small saucepan until nearly boiling and poured it over the chocolate. Leave it to melt for 5 minutes and then whisk until smooth (if there are still unmelted bits, place bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until smooth). Strain mixture to remove seeds, then chill until thick and cooled but still pipable. Pipe or spoon between macaron shells. Refrigerate in an airtight container until you are ready to assemble your trifle for serving.

Layer 6: Passionfruit Cream

300ml (about 1/4 cup) thickened/whipping cream

1 tbsp icing sugar, sifted

1 passionfruit

In a large mixing bowl, beat cream and sugar on high speed with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Fold through pulp and seeds from passionfruit. Chill until ready to assemble your trifle for serving.

Layer 7: Mini Meringues

I followed the instructions from Butter Me Up Brooklyn (but mine look no where near as pretty!), minus the orange zest. Keep in an airtight container until you are ready to assemble your trifle. Right before serving, assemble macaron layer, cream layer and place the mini meringues on top. Serve straight away.

Banana Scones with Whipped Honey Butter

My love of scones is well-documented. But one thing has always irked me about my homemade scones; they're not very photogenic. In fact, the lumpiness and uneven shape of my original CWA scone post makes me cringe so much that I keep wanted to redo the photos. But then I made this batch of Banana Scones with Whipped Honey Butter, and I realised that all my scones look pretty lumpy and uneven. It's my fault, I'm terrified of over-working the dough because there is nothing worse than a tough, rock-hard scone. I want my scones to be fluffy clouds of deliciousness. So I guess I still have a way to go before I improve the look of my scones to the level that you see from the CWA ladies.

So I may not be 100% happy with how these look, but I do love how they taste. It's a great way to use up those bananas that are too ripe, and that extra cream you might have in your fridge (I always have extra cream but that's me). The scones are super soft and light, and they are really meant to be served with some kind of sweet topping, like the whipped honey butter and strawberry jam, or cream & jam. The scones themselves are not sweet at all, so you'll have to add some icing sugar and spices to the scone mixture if you plan on eating them on their own.

Originally I was planning to make some honeycomb butter to go with these scones, but I was too lazy to make my own sugar honeycomb, and I managed to eat the two Crunchie bars that I bought for it. Chocolate bars do not last very long in my house. But this fluffy honey butter works just as well with the banana scones, with the added sweetness and just a hint of cinnamon. It's so good melted on a warm, freshly baked scone.

My favourite part about making these scones was opening up my oven to be greeted with the smell of the warm banana in these scones. It smells amazing! Because the scones are so light the flavour is not super intense, but it's definitely noticeable. I'm quite happy to eat these for breakfast, brunch, tea or dessert. In fact I've been slowly making my way through a batch over the last day, zapping them in the microwave until they're piping hot, slathering them with the honey butter and strawberry jam and enjoying them with a giant steaming mug of tea.

Banana Scones with Whipped Honey Butter

(makes 9-10 scones, adapted from my plain scone recipe)

300g (about 2 1/3 US cups flour, closer to 2 metric cups) self-raising flour, sifted

1 over-ripe medium banana, well mashed (about 1/3 cup)

1/4 tsp salt

100ml (about 1/2 cup minus 1 tbsp) pure/pouring cream (min 35% fat, heavy whipping cream in the US)

160ml (about 2/3 cup) milk

Note: if you are not planning to make the butter or to serve with jam, I recommend you add about 2 tbsp sifted icing sugar and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon to the flour mixture

For the butter: (Alternatively you could make Bill's honeycomb butter)

115g (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room-temperature

4 tbsp honey

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

To serve: strawberry (or any other flavoured) jam, can replace butter with clotted cream

Remove the butter ahead of time to allow it to soften. Preheat oven to 230°C (445°F), 220 °C (430°F) fan-forced. Sift flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre, place the mashed banana in the centre. Gradually pouring the cream into the bowl, begin to cut cream and banana into dry ingredients with a flat bladed knife so that it starts to come together, then gradually add milk (using the same cutting motion with the knife to combine the ingredients) until there is enough to form a soft dough. (I usually save a small amount of milk to brush the tops of the scones)

Working quickly and gently, gather dough together on a floured bench. Try to handle the dough as little as possible, using lightly floured hands to stop dough sticking to you, and pat the dough into a rectangle about 3-3.5cm thick. You can lightly knead the dough with your hands for a smoother appearance but overknead it and your scones will be tough and hard. 

Cut out round using a 5-6cm scone cutter (push the cutter into the dough, don't twist) and place next to each other in a lined/greased heavy based baking dish that has sides (scones baked close together will rise higher and thus be lighter). I usually manage to cut about 5-6 scones, then I pat the scraps together and cut out another 2 and finally pat the scraps from that together into a ball to form the final scone. Lightly brush the tops of the scones with some extra milk using a pastry brush.

Bake for 10-15 mins, until scones are cooked through and tops are lightly browned. While scones are baking, prepare the butter; chop the softened butter into small cubes. Place the butter, cinnamon and honey in a large mixing bowl and beat well on high speed with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Place in a serving dish and store in the fridge until ready to serve. Cover with a clean tea towel to keep scones soft, serve immediately with honey butter. Strawberry jam is also a great addition to the butter. You can substitute the butter with clotted cream. Store leftover scones in an airtight container, warm up in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Best eaten on the same day but scones can also be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months. 

Rolo Chocolate Brownie Cake

After the disaster that was my Twix Cake experience I thought I would be avoiding anything chocolate and caramel-related for a long time. But caramelly, chocolately goodness is an evil temptress and I was itching to make a Rolo covered cake. Rolos are an awesome baking ingredient. I mean, look at these beauties. I had also promised Tomred a birthday cake for today (Happy Birthday Tomred!). Considering the fact that for Tomred's birthday last year I came up with one of my favourite inventions ever, the Tim Tam Cake, this Rolo Cake had big shoes to fill.

About 5 seconds after deciding to make this big-shoe Rolo Cake for Tomred's birthday, I forgot all about it. Completely, totally forgot about it until I was just starting to wake up yesterday morning. A little, nagging thought was poking the edge of my brain and stopping me from getting out of bed to make the banana scones I was planning and then OH SHIZZ I remembered about the cake. I then spent the rest of the morning running around my suburb trying to find ANYWHERE that sold Rolos, because (as per usual) the one thing that I desperately needed was nowhere to be found. I may have been a little too excited when I finally found them and bought about 10 tubes.

When I finally got around to making this cake, I realised that it would not be a cake for the faint-hearted. Two layers of fudgy brownie cake (adapted from Lisa's PX Brownie Cake), with a pack of Rolos baked into each layer, a (salted) caramel (dulce de leche to be specific) filling just like a Rolo, covered in a milk chocolate ganache and topped off with a mountain of Rolos. Yep. I won't even try to pretend this isn't decadent and over the top. But I DID try to make it less sickly-sweet and unbalanced by halving the sugar and eggs in the cake. But there is a lot of butter, which is always something I always freak out about when I make a brownie recipe. I used salted butter in the cake and sea salt in the dulce de leche, and made the ganache milk instead of dark chocolate to make it less rich. In the end it's still quite rich, but not enough to make you feel totally ill after a slice. Or three. But one slice is enough!

It was so much easier boiling up a can of sweetened condensed milk to make the caramel this time around, rather than worrying about candy thermometers and hot sugar syrups. And it's also so easy to spread swirls of 'rustic' (*cough* lazy & messy *cough*) ganache on the outside. If you're wondering how you're able to see a slice of this birthday cake before the birthday boy has seen it; my workmates and I have an unspoken agreement. They help me finish off most of the baked goods that I make for this blog no matter how strange my experiments are, and they also understand that every birthday cake they get from me will probably have a slice pre-removed for blogging purposes. Hopefully they'll enjoy this cake as much as all the other cakes minus one slice that they've tried.

Rolo Chocolate Brownie Cake with Caramel Filling

(makes one 20cm cake, adapted from spicy ice cream's PX Brownie Cake)

400g (about 3.5 sticks) butter (I used salted but unsalted is fine too)

200g (7oz) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

4 large eggs

200g (1 scant cup) caster sugar (superfine sugar, using white sugar is fine too)

200g (about 1 2/3 cups) plain flour

2 tubes Rolos + (optional) 4+ tubes Rolos to decorate the top of cake

1 can (395g/14oz) dulce de leche (instructions on how to make it here) or store-bought thick caramel
Note: you can replace the dulce de leche and put a layer of Rolos in the middle of the cake instead, now that would be crazy awesome.

For the chocolate ganache:

400g (about 14oz) good quality milk or dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used milk)

300ml (1 1/4 cup) pure/pouring cream (min 35% fat, heavy whipping cream in the US)

Preheat the oven to 150°C (300°F), grease and line 2 x 20cm springform tins (or you can bake one cake after another if you only have one tin). Melt butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering, stirring occasionally until smooth. Whisk eggs and caster sugar in an electric mixer until thick and pale (about 3-5 minutes), fold through chocolate mixture then fold in flour until just combined. Pour batter into the prepared tins, smooth top and (if you wish) press rolos over the surface of each cake (1 pack for each) and bake until just firm to touch (25-30 minutes). Cool completely in pan, then very carefully transfer one cake to a serving dish. If you are making your own caramel, make sure you prep it ahead of time so it is cool and ready to be spread at this point.

Whisk dulce de leche to remove any lumps, add a couple pinches of crushed sea salt if you would like to have salted caramel filling. Whisk until combined, then spread a generous layer of caramel over the top of the first cake. Refrigerate this for at least 30 mins, this will keep your dulce de leche firm. Carefully sandwich the second cake on top (upside-down). Don't worry if either of your cakes crack, icing covers everything. Prepare the ganache; place chopped chocolate in a large heatproof mixing bowl. Place cream in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring just to the boil, then remove from heat and pour hot cream over the top of chopped chocolate and leave in bowl for 5 mins. Use a whisk to bring mixture together, if there are still unmelted lumps of chocolate after this, you can place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until it is completely melted. Chill in the fridge until thick but spreadable and just under room temperature (I sped up this process by placing the bowl in the freezer and whisking the mixture every 5 minutes until it was ready). Using a spatula, spread ganache over the top of the cake. Decorate cake with extra Rolos, I chopped half of them in half so you could see the caramel innards. Can be served immediately, or stored in the fridge until ready to serve. Can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for several days.

Heart Polka Dot Macarons & Vanilla Bean Blueberry Cupcakes

I was feeling a little selfish when I decided to make these. I was meant to be baking up something sweet to bring along to a BBQ, but I used it as an excuse to practice piping my heart-shaped macarons (which I have made twice before) before the wedding, plus I felt like making something pretty rather than coming up with some crazy flavour combination. Early in the morning I was determined to make some brightly coloured cupcakes with heart macarons on top. Three hours later, and two inedible batches of hideous failcakes in the bin and I was about ready to tear my hair out. Maybe it was the curse of Friday the 13th, even the simplest things were going wrong.

When I'm having a seriously bad day in the kitchen the best thing for me to do is to put my feet up and try again another day. But my stubbornness prevailed and I pushed on, falling back to my foolproof cupcake recipe, which is so easy and never lets me down. At the last minute I decided to throw in 2 punnets of blueberries instead of 1, which ended up being wayyyy too much fruit for the batter. But it still tasted pretty good. Simple, but classic.

I made the macarons in a bright teal shade, I love teal. In a random spasm of sprinkle-loving insanity, I grabbed some white heart-shaped sprinkles and dotted them over the surface of the macarons. I wish I had the regular round confetti sprinkles but the heart ones were kinda adorable too. It's probably an unnecessary embellishment, but it's damn cute. It was comforting that my macarons turned out well, considering all the issues I had with my over-complicated cupcakes. Obviously it's just better to keep things simple sometimes so I went with a old-faithful icing flavour; vanilla bean.

I whipped up the icing with a ton of vanilla bean, I just love the way the little black dots are speckled throughout the fluffy icing. I also added some natural pink food colouring to the icing to give it a light pink tinge as I was inspired by the pink & teal colour combination of this beautiful cake by Sweetapolita. I'm a little bit in love with how dainty and girly the whole thing looks. These cupcakes and macarons are nothing particularly original or different but it looks and tastes fantastic.

Heart Polka Dot Macarons & Vanilla Bean Blueberry Cupcakes
(makes 12 cupcakes, plus a few extra macarons)
For the macarons: (if you are a beginner with macarons, read up and practice plain macarons first. BraveTart has lots of useful advice and info on the subject)
100g aged egg whites (you can use fresh eggs too, just make sure they are room temperature. I always use fresh these days, and zap it in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)
110g almond meal, at room temperature and well sifted
200g icing/confectioner's sugar
50g caster/superfine sugar
Optional: 1 tsp powdered egg whites (available from The Essential Ingredient), helps to stabilise egg whites but is not necessary
To decorate: blue/green food colouring (powdered or gel), white sprinkles

For the cupcakes:
1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange or mandarin juice
2 eggs
125g (1 stick plus about 1 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
155g (3/4 cup) sugar
225g (about 1 + 3/4 cups) self-raising flour
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 punnet (150g) fresh or frozen blueberries

For the vanilla bean icing:
250g unsalted butter
575g (about 4.5 cups) icing sugar , sifted
1/4 cup milk
1 vanilla bean pod, seeds scraped and pod discarded (or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste/vanilla extract)
(I also added a few drops of natural pink food colouring for decoration)

Prepare the macarons first; line two baking sheets with baking paper. Place icing sugar in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse for about 30 seconds to combine. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and egg white powder in a medium mixing bowl until the egg white powder dissolves and it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar and beat until it reaches stiff peaks. (You can add the blue/green food colouring to the meringue as you are beating it to stiff peaks, it makes it easier to adjust how much colouring to add. Otherwise add it in the next step.)

Add meringue to your dry mixture and mix, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white (you really want to beat all the large bubbles out of the mixture, be rough!), then mix carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated and it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds. Place mixture in a piping bag with a 1cm round piping tip. Pipe heart shapes using a 1cm piping tip and piping fat 'V' shapes (see end of this post for a video example). Tap baking sheets carefully and firmly on the benchtop a couple times to remove any large bubbles. If you wish, you can decorate the shells with sprinkles to create a polka dot effect, I used the softer (not nonpareils) heart-shaped sprinkles.

Leave to dry for about an hour, so that when you press the surface of one gently it does not break. This will help prevent any cracking and help the feet to form on the macs. These macarons seem to need a longer drying time than regular round ones as they are prone to cracking. Preheat your oven to 140-150°C (285-300°F), depending on your oven. Place on top of an overturned roasting tray or another baking sheet if your sheets are not professional grade, for better heat distribution. Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Carefully test if the base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it's still soft and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few minutes longer. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the cupcakes; Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Place sugar and butter in a food processor and pulse until smooth, then add juice, eggs, flour and vanilla and pulse until just smooth. (If you don't have a processor, cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer at high speed, beat in eggs one at a time and then fold juice, flour and blueberries into the mixture until smooth.) Fold in blueberries with a spatula and then spoon into a 12-hole cupcake tray lined with papers. Bake for about 20 minutes or until cupcakes are golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean (ignoring blueberry juice). Remove from the oven and cool in tin for 5 minutes and then cool completely on a wire rack.

Prepare the icing; remove the butter from the fridge 30 minutes before starting. Place in a large mixing bowl and beat at high speed, gradually adding icing sugar (and adding the milk and vanilla about halfway through) and beating until light and fluffy. Place in a piping bag, pipe on top of cupcakes and sandwich between macarons. Place macarons on top of cupcakes and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight in an airtight container. Remove from the fridge and allow to come back to room temperature before serving. Can be stored in the fridge for several days.